Lehigh's Poillon Playing Through Torn Labrum in Hip

Lehigh coach Kevin Cassese calls junior Matt Poillon a “program-changing” goalie for the Mountain Hawks, stepping into a starting role for Lehigh as a freshman and quickly emerging as one of the top goalies in Division I.

This year, Poillon's faced a new challenge: He's been playing the entire 2014 season with a torn labrum in his right hip, an injury that requires surgery and limits his side-to-side explosiveness.

Poillon is sixth in the country in save percentage (58.4%) and second in goals against (6.30) despite the injury, which he and coach Kevin Cassese confirmed in a phone call Monday morning. Those numbers are down slightly from his previous two seasons, but the Mountain Hawks' defensive scoring average is No. 2 in the country. In 2013, Poillon stopped 59.6%; 59.7% in 2012.

“After all the work we put in during the fall, it was devastating to hear I could miss this season,” Poillon said. “It was either play with an injury not at 100%, or sit out the year and have two years at 100%. I knew even though this isn't going to be fun, it's something I could play through.

“It came down to just me not wanting to miss the season. It would have been tough having to sit out this season having gone through the fall and after two great seasons and two straight Patriot League titles.”

He found out he would need surgery in December. He scheduled his surgery for just after Memorial Day weekend.

Poillon noticed during training in the fall that he was struggling with some of the stop-and-go, side-to-side motion. He thought it was a pulled hip flexor, but an MRI revealed a significant tear in the right labrum.

Cassese has limited his use in practice, preserving Poillon for gameday.

“He's definitely a tough kid. He literally hasn't practiced. We practice him one day if we have a full week to prepare, and that's it. If we have a midweek game, he won't practice,” Cassese said. “You're going to be an MLL goalie. You're going to get one practice and one game.”

“During the week after games, it's pretty tough. It gets to the point where I could barely make it through a warmup,” Poillon said. “Coming into a game, I won't be practicing a full practice. Getting to the game, the fact that I've had a week to rest and the fact that it's a game — there's some adrenaline — I just put [the pain] in the back of my mind.”

“From a coaching standpoint, we don't notice it at all on a gameday. He doesn't complain on the sideline, and he'll tell you that he doesn't even think about it,” Cassese said.

The lack of practice affected him early, as he struggled early in the season but has come on strong as of late. Early on, his confidence and some of his explosiveness was shaken, Poillon said. Another concern was communication with his defense, to which Poillon credits Ty Souders in particular for stepping up and taking a key leadership role.

As a goalie known for his athleticism, any loss of the physical aspect of his game was particularly concerning. Poillon was recruited out of Mount Sinai (N.Y.) for his raw athleticism and had to develop his goalie technique. He also was injured for a stretch last year, suffering a concussion early in the season during a rough stretch for the Mountain Hawks' schedule. When he returned to the lineup against Penn State, it was a huge boost to the team and the beginning of a turnaround.

The Princeton game this year — an overtime loss — was particularly a confidence boost for Poillon, who was peppered with shots from the Tigers' high-powered offense early in the game.

Poillon will try to get the surgery pushed forward should the Mountain Hawks have an earlier exit. It will take at least four to six months to recover, meaning he will likely miss or be limited through some portion of fallball next year. The injury is similar to the one that has sidelined the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez in recent seasons; Poillon does experience pain during the week walking to class, and says he's really limited himself to just class and games this spring.

This week provides a particularly grueling outlook: To win the Patriot League championship, the Mountain Hawks would have to play three games in six days.

“This is what we've been working for from Day One. We knew that the bar was raised with Loyola in the league. We knew we'd have to work twice as hard. We've given it our all this season. We've had some setbacks. We've been in pretty lows places as times, but we've been able to build and recover from that,” Poillon said. “We've put in so much hard work. Now that we have Navy, and hopefully more into this weekend, that's everything that we've been working for.”